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No-brainer for the Tigers. Personality off the charts, a good RF, all-around ballplayer, will help them vs. lefties, only 2 years, they have need at the position, etc. They need to find a platoon partner for Dirks so A Garcia and N Castellanos (being groomed for the OF) can spend the year playing full time in the minors.

I knew he wasn't coming back, but I'm saddened to learn that he's officially no longer an Angel. Really good player and (from the outside) seems to be even a better guy and teammate. Definitely an upgrade for Detroit, on and off the field.

I'll miss Torii. He did everything the Angels could have possibly expected and more. Not just the production, but the selfless move to right when Bourjos and then Trout were ready to take over CF.

It looks like the Angels planned on Torii, age 37 now, to be finished at the end of the contract. With trades and signings the Angels had already built the lineup and payroll for the 2013 team with no room for Torii. He surprised them by playing like a man 10 years younger than his birth certificate.

Good luck with the Tigers Torii, and if you had to leave, thank you for not signing with Texas.

Well, his approach changed. Dave Cameron has a good piece on what to expect from Torii here.

Even if Hunter can repeat his batted ball distribution from 2012, he’s not going to get those same results. He’s not going to post a 130 wRC+ again. The Tigers shouldn’t have any illusions that they’re getting a guy capable of repeating his +5 win season. But, there’s enough left that a 100-110 wRC+ a reasonable expectation, and with his speed, defense, and durability, he should still project as an average or slightly above average player. In 2014, maybe he slides to being a bit below average, and all told, he produces +4 WAR over the next two years. At $26 million, that’s not any kind of bargain, but it’s also not a drastic overpay. It’s maybe a couple million higher than what you’d hope for, but it’s an overpay that has a chance to put wins on the board at a time when the Tigers badly need wins.

Even a .750 OPS with his defence and baserunning is a 3-4 win upgrade over what the Tigers ran out (mostly Boesch) in RF this year.

That would be a couple runs below league average for a corner outfielder in the current offensive environment. Add on Hunter's above average defense and baserunning, that's a perfectly solid contributor at a reasonably fair price. And that's your "I can easily see" pessimistic case.

Matt, it's not that pessimistic. He just put up his lowest ISO and lowest HR% since 2000. And he'd already seen a fairly significant drop in his ISO the previous two seasons as well. So 2012 was the tail end of a 3 year trend, not a fluke outlier.

Thats nearly a collapse in power. If that ISO doesn't rebound, coupled with the expected regression to his BABIP, I think what I forecasted is a median projection, neither pessimistic or optimistic.

You want pessimism, I'll give you pessimism. ;) .245/.295/.385 .680

I know 3 or 4 years weighted models are not going to return that kind of a projection. But this is the age when models start to break down, as do bodies.

This isn't a horrible signing, and if his power can rebound a bit, and his body holds up, then the Tigers might break even, or not come up too far short, like Cameron says above.
But personally I see a guy about to step off a pretty large cliff. We'll see next year if I'm right.

These things, one by one, or individually, don't mean all that much. But taken together are just the type of things I look for when trying to gauge if a guy is going to suddenly collapse. When the music stops on Tori's productiveness, it's very likely the Tigers are going to be left standing without a chair in the game.

Devon White retired at age 38, but he probably wasn't realistically done. He put up a 108 OPS+ in that final season, and went 18/3 on the basepaths. He was in a "retired, because he wanted to retire" rather than a "retired, because no one wanted him anymore" retirement.